London

Now, I'm not saying that this is something we saw happen in town today

Probably because, if I was to be entirely truthful, we didn't. But we did come to a decision today, and that's to stay in or near London.

The thing is that we were looking for work in both London and up in Leeds/York, and it really became clear that we weren't both going to be able to find something up north. This is disappointing in a way, because the places we were thinking about living up there are really lovely. But it just wasn't going to be practical - Bob had some prospect of a contract with the BBC in Manchester, and I had a good prospect of a permanent job in Leeds, but it would have been an expensive 2 hour train commute for her, and a somewhat below market wage for me. So...

Before going on, an aside: there's an odd thing about the North we've noticed, and it could be similar in other regions as well. There's a general and oft repeated belief that living costs in the North are lower than down here, therefore salaries can be a lot lower. Yes, everything we figured out around all the costs we could think of suggested that living costs are a bit lower than London, but not hugely lower. The biggest difference would be rent, but one of the big items is going to be public transport, and for the likely commutes we would be doing from say York or Saltire to Leeds would be about the same price. The trouble is that wages are a lot lower. Quite odd.

We've not entirely ruled out living up North (the prospect of working a few blocks from the Royal Armouries is very attractive), and know that we can potentially opt to move later, but for now we're only going to chase after work options in and near London. Of course, that covers a world of possibilities. Do we aim to work in or near the middle of town (i.e., zones 1-3), or are we going to work in one of the satellite towns? Will we try to live in zones 1-3 somewhere we can easily get out to places like Guildford, or live in some place like Guildford and trek into town? The options seem endless, and all entirely dependent on work.

Unfortunately we really are a little obsessed with work at the moment. Almost everything else is unfortunately dependent on that: somewhere to live, somewhere to dance, somewhere to wave swords, re-enactors to meet up with.